


Let It Out

by murdermewithbooks



Category: Narcos (TV), The Mandalorian (TV), Triple Frontier (2019)
Genre: Anxiety, Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Francisco Morales x Reader, Frankie Morales x Reader - Freeform, Holding Hands, Stress Relief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:34:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25645126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murdermewithbooks/pseuds/murdermewithbooks
Summary: Keeping your eyes on his face, you reach for his hand and intertwine your fingers. He holds your hand in a comforting grip, squeezing it once before turning his head to look up at the stars that are slowly growing more visible as day morphs into night.
Relationships: Francisco "Catfish" Morales & Reader, Francisco "Catfish" Morales/You
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	Let It Out

**Author's Note:**

> i just really love the idea of Frankie helping someone deal with their anxiety and the way he helps Reader here is something I’ve been wanting to do foreeeever (but unfortunately, trespassing is frowned upon 😂). i hope y’all enjoy it, any/all comments are always welcome 🥰 thanks for reading 💜

You were raised in chaos–surrounded by constant yelling and fighting. Though not all of it was bad. Your family just has naturally loud voices, so sometimes the house would be bursting at the seams from your everyone’s incessant laughter and playful bickering back and forth about the smallest of things. 

But it wasn’t always like that. And the problem was, you never knew when the shouting would be out of joyful excitement or pure rage. It’s the reason most days you’d just stay in your room, away from the chaotic environment entirely. You’d keep to your books and music while everyone else went about their boisterous ways. 

But all of this madness eventually led you to become the severely anxious adult you are now. And after a long grueling day of being yelled at by your boss for not getting a project done by its due date, all that past anxiety and frustration is starting to rise to the surface again, threatening to boil over at any second.

You’ve been seeing a therapist for quite some time now, and she really has been a big help in your life. But the worry is always there, hanging over your head and constantly demanding your attention. Your body grows heavy as you lean against the kitchen island with your arms crossed over your chest, your foot tapping to a hurried beat. 

_What if I can’t finish the project in time? What if I lose my job? What if–_

The microwave ding startles you out of your thoughts and you push off the counter a little too forcefully. Your elbow knocks into something hard and you retract your arm with a hiss just as the crystal vase that was resting on the counter comes crashing down onto the tile floor, its contents spilling everywhere. 

_Perfect, just_ … “fucking perfect,” you grumble, rubbing your elbow where it made contact with the vase. You head to the hall closet to grab a broom and some paper towels when a loud knock on the front door calls your attention. 

Glancing back at the mess on the floor, you rub your temples in an attempt to quell the headache that’s starting to form–and to will the frustrated tears in your eyes not to fall. Whoever’s at the door continues to knock and you’re about two seconds away from losing it.

“It” being what little sanity you have left.

Stalking over to the door, you yank it open with an exasperated, “Yes?” only to find your neighbor, Frankie, standing before you, his arm raised like he’s about to knock again. “Oh, sorry, Frankie. I didn’t know it was you. What’s up?” you ask him, worrying your bottom lip as you try to control the blush rising to your cheeks.

He briefly looks around you and into the apartment, his expression unreadable as he says, “I, uh, heard a loud crash. Is everything okay?” Even under his signature ball cap, you can see his brow furrow in concern. You’ve only known him a few months since you moved into the apartment complex, but you always greet each other in the hallway and have even exchanged numbers–solely in case of emergencies, of course. 

You also know he was a pilot in the military for several years. If his quiet, disciplined demeanor didn’t give away his time in the service, the haunted look you’d see in his eyes from time to time did. Sometimes you could even hear him walking around his apartment in the middle of the night, most likely avoiding a slumber filled with nightmares and dreadful memories. 

You shake your head, trying to refocus on the present, “Oh, no–I mean, yeah, I knocked over a vase. I’m fine physically, though,” you offer him a tight smile, and he nods in understanding but makes no move to walk away. His bottom lip–not that you were looking at his mouth or anything–pouts slightly as he stuffs his hands into the back-pockets of his jeans, “And what about not physically?”

It takes a second for you to understand his question, but with a sigh, you shake your head, “I’ve just…had a day, you know?” He nods again and you’re actually grateful he’s a man of few words since you won’t be able to hold an entire conversation without your emotions taking over right now. 

His head tilts forward a bit as he says, “Well if you need anyone to talk to, you know where to find me.” He offers an almost-sad smile before turning to head back to his apartment. The sincerity in his words settles in your chest and you find yourself calling out, “Wait!” making him turn back to face you, his eyebrows raised expectantly.

“Can I…take you up on that offer, actually? I really need to talk to someone before I accidentally break another vase,” you chuckle weakly and he smiles at you, “Of course,” and he heads back to your apartment without another word.

After he helps you clean up the shards of glass and puddle of water–even thought you had insisted he didn’t have to and that you’d clean it up later–you’re both seated on the sofa, each of you silently sipping the bottles of coke you pulled from your fridge. You’d offered him a beer but he turned it down, saying he had to drive somewhere later on. 

A few minutes pass before you even realize he’s waiting for you to speak–you _did_ tell him you needed to talk to someone. Although, just his presence has calmed you down enough that even your headache has started to fade, though it grows more intense every time your pulse starts to spike–mainly whenever Frankie takes a drink and you can’t help but notice the way his Adam’s apple bobs up and down.

The silence drags on for a few moments longer before you find yourself admitting in a quiet voice, “I feel like I’m…cracking. Like–” you stare at the coffee table, trying to find the right words while he gently places his half-empty bottle on the wooden surface “–it’s like the dam in my brain, and…maybe my heart too, has been spread so thin that the foundation is starting to give. And nothing I do is enough to patch up the weak spots in the dam, you know? I feel it spilling out and…I don’t know how to stop it.”

Your head feels like someone is taking a jackhammer to it and you go to set your barely drunken bottle of soda on the table when you notice pieces of the label missing. But finding the ripped pieces of damp paper in your lap, you realize you must have been mindlessly peeling away at it as you spoke. 

“Maybe you shouldn’t stop it,” his deep voice reaches your ears and with a furrowed brow, you glance in his direction as he continues, “I mean, clearly there’s something that’s bothering you to the point of near-combustion–maybe you shouldn’t be…suppressing it?” He scratches the light scruff lining his jaw while seemingly lost in thought. 

His eyes connect with yours and you instantly turn away, your face growing warm after being caught staring. You clear your throat before saying, “I don’t–I’m afraid of what might happen if I don’t keep it under control. I can’t just…” your sentence trails off when you realize you have no idea what you’re even trying to say. 

He doesn’t give you time to dwell on your thoughts before he silently rises to his feet and pulls a set of car keys from his pocket. Finishing the rest of his drink, he walks over to the kitchen sink and rinses the glass. Your heart deflates when you realize he’s getting ready to leave, but you keep your expression neutral as you stand up to walk him to the door. 

But then he stops in front of you, gnawing his bottom lip while he stuffs his hands in his pockets, saying, “I might have something that can help. It’s just a short drive from here–I mean, if you want to come with me.” His ears turn a bright shade of pink and you can’t help but smile at the shy look in his eyes as you consider his offer. Truthfully, you have no reason _not_ to trust him–he’s been nothing but kind and genuine since the first day you met him. 

“Okay, where are we going?”

You try to calm the fluttering of your heart beneath your rib cage when he answers with a boyish grin and tilts his head toward the door, “Come on.” 

~~~

“Wait, we’re _flying_ somewhere?” you ask when he parks his truck just outside the fence surrounding the tarmac of a small airport runway. He switches off the ignition and unbuckles his seatbelt, “Not exactly,” his voice is strained as he reaches for something in the backseat.

The ride here was a quiet one mostly filled with classic rock songs playing on the radio. One thing you admired about Frankie was the peaceful silence he offered. You didn’t feel pressured to hold an engaging conversation with him or entertain him with extravagant stories about your life just to keep his attention. It was a stark contrast to the tumultuous environment you grew up in and that realization only makes you more grateful for his comforting presence.

The two of you jump out of the truck and meet at the front. You look over at Frankie and notice he’s holding a rolled-up blanket under his arm, which must’ve been what he was reaching in the backseat for. “This way,” he shouts over the sound of a fleeing airplane’s engines, angling his head towards a grassy area just past the fencing around the tarmac. 

Had it been any other man leading you to a hidden place, you would’ve ran in the other direction, knowing all too well the malice that is easily masked by good intention. 

But not Frankie. You don’t know him that well, but something in his eyes tells you he can be trusted–that he doesn’t have a menacing bone in his body. So you follow him to an area not too far from where his truck is parked and he spreads the blanket out on the grass. He sits down and brushes some blades of grass off the area of the blanket you suppose is for you to occupy, before finally looking up at you with innocent eyes.

“I, uh–” he starts when you slowly walk over to the blanket and sit down next to him, “–I come here sometimes when I feel like I’m…cracking.” His use of the word you used earlier makes your chest swell for some unknown reason and you nod along to his words as he continues, “I used to be a pilot for one of the smaller airlines here actually, unil–well, I don’t work here anymore.” He rubs the back of his neck and looks forward, away from your curious gaze. The weary look in his eyes keeps you from pressing the matter further, even though you’re aching to know what’s going through his mind at this very moment.

“Anyways, one of the runway operators is a buddy of mine and he lets it slide whenever I come here to… shout,” he looks back at you, his expression somewhat cautious, like he’s waiting for you to freak out or something. But you just blink back at him, waiting (somewhat) patiently for him to explain what he means by “shout.”

He clears his throat and turns his head to face the runway once more, where an airplane is taxiing in preparation for takeoff. “When it flies over us, just shout or scream or curse as loud as you want and let the dam inside your mind break. The engines drown out pretty much all noise within a certain radius, so you can literally scream your head off and no one will hear you.” He lays back on the blanket and you watch him close his eyes for a second as he takes a deep breath, “It’s…freeing.”

 _Free_ \- that’s something you haven’t felt for as long as you can remember, if you’ve _ever_ felt free in your life. You’ve been tied to a certain way of life–a certain identity–for so long, all you know is how to stay within those bounds of confinement, never really trying to push yourself past them. But lately, the desperate need to escape has been clawing its way through your mind, slashing away at the dam containing all your stress and anxiety.

And when Frankie looks up at you, it’s like seeing your own reflection–it’s foreign yet familiar all at the same time. You lay down next to him, your arm flush against his. And when you feel his knuckles brush yours, he quickly pulls his hand closer to his side of the blanket, not wanting to touch you without your permission. 

You turn your head to look at his face and he hesitantly does the same, his dark eyes a warm shade of brown. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the airplane speeding down the runway. It’s so close you can feel the ground shaking beneath you and your heart begins to pound in your chest. Frankie looks just as affected, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

Keeping your eyes on his face, you reach for his hand and intertwine your fingers. He holds your hand in a comforting grip, squeezing it once before turning his head to look up at the stars that are slowly growing more visible as day morphs into night. The ground quakes with greater intensity, almost to the point of making you nauseous, but then he squeezes your hand again and you turn to look up as well.

And when the whirring of the plane’s engines becomes all you know in existence, you release a scream from deep in your belly, the reverberation leaving your whole body trembling from years of pent-up emotions. You look over at the man whose warmth is keeping you grounded and his face is contorted in a shout that’s completely drowned out by the sound of the engines–just like he said it would be.

Every cell in your body feels like it’s opening up for the first time, releasing all the toxic energy that’s been weighing you down for years. And when your voice is spent, your lungs take in a breath of fresh air– _really_ take it in. Everything feels so much clearer with the noise fading in the distance, but your heart continues to race long after the blanket of silence falls upon you once more.

You look over at Frankie to find him watching you, elation clear on his features as his breaths become more steady. “Better?” he asks in a raspy voice that makes your stomach flip. An airy laugh falls from your lips and you bring your other hand to your face out of embarrassment, though your chest feels lighter than ever, “‘Better’ is an understatement,” your breathless answer makes him chuckle and you realize your hands are still joined between you.

He seems to realize this a moment later as well and looks down to where your hand remains held in his. You offer a reassuring squeeze when he looks back at you with questioning eyes, and a timid smile spreads on his features. “Can we do one more?” you ask quietly, biting your lip with an air of giddiness.

His eyes fall to your lips for a second before meeting your eyes again, and he simply nods, his hat going askew from the movement. You laugh when his other hand flies to head to pull the hat back into place and his rumbling laughter makes your heart swell.

You’re not sure how long the two of you lay there, looking up at the stars even when the last flight of the evening takes off. Eventually, the two of you have to head home, but even on the drive back to your apartment, exhilaration mixed with something softer rushes through your veins. 

“That definitely beats screaming into a pillow,” you chuckle as the two of you make your way up the stairs, “I’m still shaking, but it’s like…a good shaking, you know?” You turn to face him, coming to a stop in front of your apartment door. 

He scratches his jaw as a smile forms on his face, “Yeah…yeah I know what you mean.” His hand falls to his side with a light thump, his eyes bright with something you can’t quite decipher, but you find yourself smiling back at him, “Thank you, really. I can’t tell you how much better– _lighter_ –I feel now. And–” you take a step toward him so you’re practically toe-to-toe, “–it was pretty fun, too.”

His eyes fly back and forth between yours as he croaks out, “It was,” his voice low and thick. But before you have a chance to close the gap between you, the sound of someone bounding up the stairs breaks the connection and you take a step back the same moment he says, “I should probably…” his sentence trails off as turns to walk the short distance to his apartment door.

Clearing your throat, you place the key into the lock and turn the doorknob, but before stepping inside, you glance over in his direction and say, “Goodnight, Frankie. Thanks again.” A corner of his mouth quirks up in a lopsided grin and with a subtle bow of his head, he says, “Anytime.”

And as you drift off to sleep that night, you can still feel the warmth of his hand in yours.


End file.
